Thursday, September 18, 2008

A couple of days ago, my (former) good buddy at Hornets 24/7, Ryan Schwan, wrote a post decrying the horrific predictions that were foisted upon his team last year by the big media outlets and their sudden about-face this year. He then spent his final 340 words absolutely demoralizing the Grizzlies, while acting apologetic about it the entire time. Of course, this means that I must retaliate. But I like the way this Hornets team is put together and realize that they are definitely one of the top 2 teams in the West, so I cannot reciprocate in the same manner. That means I must tear apart his post -- word by word. Let's do it!

Flat out, the Grizzlies will be pushing to have one of the worst records of all time. Their veterans are the worst sort of dregs: Greg Buckner, Antoine Walker, and Marko Jaric. Useless, Cancer, Slacker.

The worst record of all time for an 82 game season is the 1972/73 Philadelphia 76ers who went an absolutely atrocious 9-73. The worst team last year, the tanking Miami Heat, went 15-67. I think the Grizz will be bad, but not historically bad. Definitely not, drink yourself into a stupor by halftime and drive your car off the New Bridge bad.

As for our lovely collection of veterans....Ryan does know that Marko "Slacker" Jaric can't be slacking that much if he's engaged to Adriana Lima. Right? I mean, c'mon! If he's a slacker, then I must be doing everything wrong.

Their frontcourt is horribly weak. Marc Gasol - if he makes a successful transition to the U.S. - is a good Oberto-like backup big, but other than Marc, there's no one to rebound or play in the paint. Darko has finally developed . . . into a foul- and injury-prone stiff. Hakim Warrick and Darrell Arthur provide no post presence and combined weigh as much as Marc Gasol, and the new Iranian import Haddadi is both raw and twenty-three, a bad combination.

I make no guarantees about how Marc Gasol will transition to the NBA. I can say that he will be 5 times as tough as his older brother, which is an excellent start. His decision to put Chris Bosh on his backside in the Olympics made me all warm and tingly inside last month.

Let's take a look at some stats. Player A averaged 7.6 ppg, 5.2 rpg, 1.8 bpg in 22.5 mpg over 180 games. Player B averaged 7.1 ppg, 6.5 rpg, 1.3 bpg in 22.1 ppg over 181 games. Look strikingly similar? Player A is Darko Milicic since he got traded to Orlando and actually got playing time. Player B is Tyson Chandler's first 3 years in the league -- the 3rd year was shortened by injury. If Darko's thumb injury that plagued him for most of last season makes him an injury-prone stiff, then I guess I'll take that with a grain of salt.

Hak is still Hak, so I can't dispute that he's a rail-thin Zach Randolph level black hole. What? Ryan didn't say that about him? My bad.

I have no idea what either Darrell Arthur or Hamed Haddadi will do at the NBA level, so I'll have to bow before Ryan's superior prognostications.

The Memphis guards aren't going to be tremendously better. OJ Mayo was simply not that good in college, and I already have doubts he'll ever be a top tier shooting guard in the league, much less be one in his rookie season. Mike Conley showed last year he was injury prone and merely okay when he wasn't hurt, Kyle Lowry showed he was fierce but limited, and Javaris Crittenton showed . . . well not a lot because he played so little - which is its own indictment.

You know, I thought the same thing about O.J. Mayo prior to the draft. But then I did a little research and came up with these numbers: 20.7 ppg, 3.3 apg, 4.5 rpg, 1.5 spg, .442 FG%, .409 3PT%. For a comparison, here's some stats: 20.4 ppg, 3.3 rpg, 4.5 apg, 3.0 spg, .390 FG%, 23.2 3PT%. Those are Allen Iverson's after his freshman season at Georgetown. I think we can upgrade him from "simply not that good" to "much better than perceived".

One season makes for an injury prone player? Does Ryan know what I know -- which is that Conley played most of last season with a bum shoulder, which is what contributed heavily to him being "merely okay"? He's no CP3, but he's not Sebastian Telfair either. I expect a marked improvement from Conley this season -- as long as he doesn't let my impending destruction of him on the bowling lanes affect him all year.

I agree about Lowry and Critt to this point.

That leaves Rudy Gay. He's a good scorer, but he's not all-around good, and he's probably not even a franchise player. Put him on the Hornets, and I'd rank him as only the fourth best player behind Paul, West and Chandler.

Wow. Just simply wow. 20 ppg, 6 rpg, a steal and a block per game aren't good enough to warrant an "all-around" tag nowadays? I understand that he's not a passer and should probably have slightly better numbers in the rebounds and blocks categories, but for a 2nd year player, I think we've placed expectations unreasonably high if those stats are to be an indictment, rather than a reason for praise.

As for where he would rank on the Hornets, if you put him with CP3 as his point guard, rather than a couple of rookies, he would be the 2nd best player as he would become Paul's new favorite target on the fastbreak. I like David West and Tyson Chandler, even as I watched them destroy the Grizzlies last season, but without Paul, they aren't nearly as good. It's like players who leave the company of Jason Kidd (coughKenyonMartincough) and suddenly prove just how dependent upon him they were. Rudy Gay was a 20 ppg scorer with little to no help from his teammates -- imagine what he would do with a premier setup man like Chris Paul feeding him.

And that's my entire problem with these Grizzlies. They have one player who could start for most of the teams of the league(Gay), four players that would be in a nine-man rotation because they are young and show promise(Conley, Lowry, Mayo, Gasol) and that's it. If they break 15 wins this season, I'll be impressed.

Yes, they are a young team. Just like the Hornets were 3 years ago and the Blazers were 2 years ago. Where are those two teams now? Oh, that's right, one is among the elite of the league and the other is expected to crash the postseason this year.

Bold (aka Foolish) Challenge: If the Grizzlies fail to win 15 games, I will end all of my posts next season with a link to Hornets 24/7 in the following sentence "Ryan Schwan is the greatest blogger in the history of mankind."

Now what do you have to offer in return? Consider the gauntlet to have been thrown down.

The opinions of this blog are not shared by the entire 3 Shades of Blue blogger staff. Some of us won't call Ryan the greatest blogger of all time even if the Grizzlies don't win 9 games this season!

The Grizz will not be great this year, but they will be improved. Consider:

* Attrition. Some teams that were ahead of us are due to fall off. Think Golden State, PHX, Denver, Dallas. Not that we'll have a better record than any of them, but those teams probably will be weaker, easier for us to beat. Sacramento and LAC, too.

* Close games. I know close only counts in horseshoes and grenades, but the Grizz lost a whopping 10 GAMES by 3 or less, including a nailbiter of an opener with the NBA Champion Spurs. The record doesn't show it, but Memphis was close in many of those losses . . . with more experience and a little defense . . .

* Defense. Ah yes, defense. Teams ran layup drills on us for whole quarters last year. Expect something different with Kevin O'Neill on board as our defensive ace coach. Tom Thibodeaux is an unsung hero in Boston. If Kevin gets these guys playing even respectable defense, I'll say we're good for at least 28-30 wins. If the Baby Bears buy in and play lockdown defense . . . LOOK OUT.

Sheesh, Hornets fans. If anyone knows how quickly an NBA team can go from zero to hero, it should be you guys. These next two years, it's OUR TURN.

I've never read either posts by you nor Hornets 24/7...but I do not think I would ever value the opinion of Hornets (Ryan Schwan?" after reading his thoughts in this blog. Not that I'm a Grizzlies fan at all, but he is completely near-sighted and absolutely retarded in nearly all of his assumptions and opinions. The Rudy Gay part is what completely put me over the edge. Not to mention thinking that Marc Gasol's ceiling is to be "An Oberto-like" back-up? Really? Because they're games, body sizes, and skill sets are so much alike? I guess that's why one would decide that they are similar in any respect? And let's count out Mike Conley while we're at it, he'll never be good..Meanwhile, I hope the Grizz win more than 15 games because that dudes doesn't deserve any plugz..Nice blog though, 3 shades - good rebuttals

20 wins.Marc will be as valuable as Pau, but in a verty different way.OJ will have a near ROY season, but mightn't have the chance to win too many games for the Grizz.Chalmers will suprise and play well above his pick level.Rudy is a scorer. A great scorer, and a bundle of fun to watch. But maybe not just yet the both-ends-of-the-court force his scoring indicates. If you were assembling a team from scratch to win games THIS SEASON, I think the smart money would take D West. But only just, and not for too many seasons to come. (But as a qualifier to Ryan, I think the smart money would take Rudy over Chandler, excepting that centres are more valuable than small forwards on the basis of scarcity)Good blog, and good luck.

I help run HornetsHype.com and I'm good friends with the guys at Hornets247. They run a great blog and Ryan's analysis is usually spot-on, so I just think he missed the hoop on this particular post. I mean, it's not hard to see why he thinks Memphis will struggle this year, but I think y'all have a lot of good young players and will surprise plenty of people this year. Marc look like a monster in China, and well, who can argue against pictures of Adriana Lima?

I just posted similar thoughts over at 247, and likely will be branded a traitor now, but I always hate it when people just start ripping on other teams and players for no reason, and I'd hate to see this "war" devolve into that. I Like the blog here, and I really hope the Grizz do well this year. Other than when they play the Hornets, of course.